


Minutes After Agony

by SkippingStone



Series: Minutes after Agony [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M, Infinity War spoilers, Secret Child
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-05
Updated: 2018-06-05
Packaged: 2019-05-18 13:58:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14854104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SkippingStone/pseuds/SkippingStone
Summary: Fear for their son overcome Nat and Steve after the battle is over.





	Minutes After Agony

**Author's Note:**

> I have never written for this fandom, but I ship tht ship for years so I thought i'd dip my toe into the water and hope for the best.
> 
> There are inconsistencies and don't think to hard about the logistics of how it could have worked with a baby on the run because I didn't. My shame. Love ya :)

He felt her move behind him, she spoke softly, but not to him and then she stepped away. Her hand brushed past his shoulder and it made him look up. And only then his brain seemed to catch up with the words whispered around him.

"The Palace?" Nat had stepped towards one of the Dora Milaje warriors who nodded in answer and that's when she started running. And a surge of ice cold blood flooded his heart and he stumbled to his feet and fear incomparable to anything he had yet felt in his life hit his stomach. 

They jump onto one of the hoverjets. 

"He was supposed to be save..." Nat muttered while she operated the aircraft.

All the answer Steve had for her was his hand on the small of her back and a broken prayer stuck in his throat _god please... not his little boy..._ on repeat the words loop his conscious thoughts.

They sprint again and it feels like a magnet pulling them towards their goal. Steve grabs Natasha's hand, giving her just a little bit more speed. There was no sense in him running ahead of her. It wouldn't be fair on her, or him for that matter. They practically skip down flights of stairs and down corridors bashed into stone. _He was supposed to be save_. There were escape plans and emergency protocols but nothing could have prepared them for this. There had been painful good-byes, because it had been so much more likely _they_ didn't survive this.

His heart jumps violently the moment they come closer and he hears the familiar screams and that's when Nat overtakes and reaches the door before him, almost slams her hand against the biometric scanner, impatiently presses her body flush against the door which slides open silently and too slow.

"Mama!" they hear their boy shout and cry before they even make eye contact. He is sobbing and hiccuping and struggling to breath because of it. Natasha bashes inside and the crying only picks up in volume. 

"MA MUUMA MUUUMAA." He cries even after Nat falls to her knees before him and pulls him into her arms. His little face is red and full of snot and his little fists instantly grab her hair and her neck.

"Shhh Mummy is here, mummy is here sweetie..." He hears the tears in her voice and he sits down beside her and as soon as he settles as close as he can, Nat slides from her knees to the side and into his arms.

Niki is alone in the room and there was a dark, dusty shadow on the floor not far from where they had come to rest. That's when the whole situation becomes real. Flashbacks of the last couple of hours invade his senses. They had lost. Not only the battle, but friends. The realization paralizes him. A lump forms in his throat and it becomes hard to breath around it. It becomes also hard not to scream, not to follow this instinct to release the pain which rushes in, spreading through his cells while building nervous energy. 

Niki's shouts for his mother turn into steady crying and it occurs to Steve that Nat is rocking back and forth and her slow but steady momentum consequently sways him, too. He smells his son's head and kisses it softly and it can barely calm him down but it initiates a sense of peace. He was safe. Niki was safe. But he was distressed. How long had it been? How long had he been alone in here before they had found him?

"What if we had vanished as well and no one would have found him?" Nat's words pierce sharply through the fog that captured him for a moment there.

"Oh Nat, Nat no. Do not go there... it's fine." He pushes her away from him so he can look her in the eyes. Nat though only looks up for a second before refocusing on their son. 

He softly rests his hand on Niki's hair where Nat's hand had been only a moment ago, she had instinctively lowered her hand to his neck. Niki instantly presses against the palm of his hand and that is the first time the boy makes eye contact with his Dad, his crying still strong and continuous.

"Mummy and Daddy are here. We won't leave. Everything is okay now, bug." And the last word literally gets stuck on his tongue. Bug. It had always been a bridge, it always was supposed to be a connection. 

_Steve_... The word echoes. _Steve_? It jolts through his muscles and Natasha's hand flies to his cheek. 

Nothing is okay. 

“Oh god, Nat... Bucky...” he breathes the words through his lips and she brushes her thumb lightly over the dry skin and then she catches the tears that finally run over his cheek.

“And Wanda...” She nods and bits her lip. _Steve._ “And...” but she lays her finger over his mouth and his next attempt at speaking is disrupted by her words.

“Not now.” But if not now, when? After the dead had been counted? 

“We lost.” he whispers the moment her hand sinks to rest on his shoulder. 

“We did.” She says that and lowers her lips once more to Niki's head. 

_Steve?_

\- - - 

“I want you to meet someone.” There is not much time. Steve knows that but this might just be their last chance and he wanted Bucky to meet his son. “Come on.” 

He leads him by the elbow and almost feels stupid doing so. But there was urgency in everything they did today.

“Where're you taking me?” Bucky laughs and Steve can only grin back at him. “Steve, tell me!” Bucky presses and catches up with him so Steve could let go of his arm.

“I told you, I want you to meet someone.”

Natasha was settling Niki in and helped to familiarize him with the guard that would watch over him during the fight and checked that he was on top of every possible plan. T'Challa had given them his word that he would be safe and Steve trusted the man.

“Captain! Let me show you the way.” Shuri had jumped into their path and Steve smiled, having expected her.

“You're in on this!” Bucky exclaimed and shook his head in mock disbelieve.

“Of course I am in on this! I am in on everything, you should know that by now, Bucky.” She turns a corner and exits a hidden elevator.

“This way!” 

They reach a door after they walked through the catacombs of the palace.

“Only you and the Black Widow can open this door from the outside.” Steve touches the biometric scanner and Bucky looks at him with a raised eyebrow before the door can fully slide open. 

“Look who is here!” Steve steps inside the room and a smile spreads over his whole face. Nat was sitting on a couch and Niki was in her lap, waving as soon as he recognizes the man coming inside.

“Dadda!” 

Steve crosses the room and swipes the child from his mother's arms. He draws him up in the air to make him giggle which he did instantly deep from his belly. Then he sits him onto his left arm in order for him to look forwards and turns back to his best friend. Bucky had stopped in his tracks at the doorway. Shuri had pushed past him and already started a conversation with the guard who was sitting beside Natasha.

“Bucky? Can I introduce you to Nikolai?” He steps close to the other man and out of habit kisses the head of curls before looking up and into Bucky's eyes. And he reads disbelieve and wonder in them, his lips are parted as if in mid sentence. But then it seems he catches himself and instantly lifts his arms.

“Hey buddy!” Without a second thought, he hands the boy over and for a moment, Bucky looks and whispers things and smiles at the boy. Next thing he finds himself in a side hug. 

“Well done, Steven. Congratulations.” he whispers. Then, however, Bucky concentrates on someone else in the room. 

“He is yours.” It is a statement, but there is a question somewhere in there. 

“Yes.” 

Steve turns to the conversation. Bucky had walked over to Natasha, who had stood up by now. “Emm, ja. There are ways here, Shuri has helped a lot. A lot of damage could be reversed.” She draws a glance over to the girl and smiles thankfully. 

“I have learned as much. It's miracle work.”

“It is.” Natasha agrees. 

“It really is not!” Shuri huffs in and rolls her eyes. This time, Bucky pulls up both eyebrows when he looks at here before he turns back to Natasha. 

“Congratulations. Tell me about him.” 

They sit down together and Steve pulls a chair from the table at the other end of the room and they can spare a little moment.

\- - - 

They sit on the floor for a while. Niki had cried himself into a restless slumber. Something tells Natasha its his bedtime. She doesn't know what time it really is. She is thirsty and her stomach hurts and they need to get up, get moving, catch up with the others, figure out what happened, figure out what they had to do now. 

She takes a deep breath in and exhales slowly. Then she pushes away from Steve and before he can react, she raises back up to a sitting position on her knees which had her standing within a second. Steve watches as she does so and she gestures for his hand so he would follow her. And with a nod and symbolically taking her hand, he gets up. “Lets find a bed somewhere and a bath.” Steve nods and then he walks over to the far wall and she sees bottled water and fruit and she closes her eyes in gratitude for a moment. He hands her an uncapped bottle and she drinks it empty in long gulps. He does the same.

And because there is no way they would ask anyone for anything tonight, not when the king had fallen, Steve grabs another two bottles and bananas and pushes them into the backpack with Niki's other stuff, while Nat changes his nappy and wipes his face clean. Then she softly lifts him back into her arms and holds his head against her shoulder while she covers his ear with her free hand. She didn't want him to wake up before they had found a place to rest for the night. She contemplates staying in the room, but found that they needed to talk to people first. They could always come back here. Or find shelter in the Jet. 

They step out of the doors and Steve's right hand comes to rest between her shoulder blades. And that's how they enter the elevator and how they walk down the halls. There are people coming their way and they nod and there are no words exchanged. It's to early for that. Loss hovers in the air. It engulfs everyone today. 

They eventually walk into Thor.

“Steve! Natasha. We have been looking for you...” he steps closer and draws his brows together in question. “Did you find that child? We started organizing responds and help centres for children who have lost their parents. Let me bring you there.”

Steve steps forwards and puts a hand on his shoulder. This was not how they planned this. But then again, nothing was going according to any plan.

“No need. He is ours. We went for him to make sure everything is fine.” It doesn't take long for a smile to spread over Thor's face. Then he draws Steve into a hug and he smiles at her from ear to ear as if all of today had never happened. And it is hard not to at least let her mouth twitch in answer. 

“Incredible. Finally some very good news!”

Niki has been a secret since his birth and to finally tell people they trusted, outside of Wanda and Sam, was heart warming. It did something to her that almost felt like joy. 

“We need somewhere to put him down, have you had contact with anyone from the palace?” 

“Come my way, I will catch you up in the meantime.” 

“Thank you, Thor.” Steve nods and he locks eyes with her for a moment and then they follow him and he explains that nothing has really happened so far, everyone was shall shocked. But some things had to happen as soon as possible. A search for people and children left helpless had already been initiated. They promise to support the search as soon as possible. 

Thor accompanies them to a person that overlooked the guests of the palace and so they find themselves in a suit not long after. And Thor leaves them and Steve promises to come down soon and join any effort that needed support.

Nat softly lays her son down on the covers. He doesn't wake up. She slips out of her amour and she hears Steve turn on the shower and she is exhausted but there is also blue blood sticking to her. So she sits down beside her son only in her underwear and waits, she caresses the boy's head and at the same time battles with waves of grief that fought to overcome her.

Steve is efficient and steps out of the shower only shortly after Nat had sat down on the bed. He kisses her forehead and lifts Niki into his arms and it seems that only then do his shoulders relax slightly. 

When Nat steps out the shower, the room is dark and she finds Steve lying on the covers of the bed with Niki on his chest and he is awake and watches her as she crawls beside him and comes to rest pressed into his side with his arm firmly around her shoulders.

“Five minutes.” she whispers.

“Five minutes.” he answers and rests his cheek on her forehead.


End file.
